Since the removal of the former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo from the South-east, and his replacement by Alhaji Haliru Bello Muhammed from the North-east, the zoning permutation of the party has suffered hiccups.

The nomination of Bello Muhammed from Kebbi State for a ministerial appointment has also thrown up a fresh challenge for the PDP, which is now torn between the South -east, the original owner of the current slot and the North-east, the zone which is expected to produce the substantive national chairman at the next convention.

If Muhammed’s nomination is ratified and confirmed, the post of the chairman would become vacant and would warrant filling up with another acting chairman pending the party’s national convention next year where a substantive national chairman would be elected.

As it were now, the slot was supposed to reside in the South -east before it would move to the North-east at the next convention.
The problem now is that the South-east, the natural owner of the slot, wants it back at least to complete its term, which was started by Nwodo.

Daily Sun reliably gathered that some top chieftains of the PDP from the South-east rose from a caucus meeting at the weekend and decided to work towards occupying “the about-to-be-vacant post that is naturally our birthright in the interest of justice and fair play.”

A source close to the meeting revealed to Daily Sun that “to underscore the seriousness attached to the project, the meeting had in attendance political bigwigs like the former vice-president Alex Ekwueme, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, national vice chairman (South-east), Chief Olisa Metu and his predecessor, Chief Fidelis Ozichukwu, among others.

The fear of the South-east PDP leaders and party elders is that if the North-east candidate is chosen for the post in acting capacity now, tendency is that the favoured candidate may be confirmed as substantive national chairman during the national nonvention and thereby putting the chance of the South-east to complete its term in total jeopardy.
It is against this background that South-east elders put heads together to demand for their political right in the PDP scheme of things. Daily Sun further gathered that the concerned leaders have put machinery in place to work out modalities on how to lobby the relevant power brokers within the party to achieve their goal.

Interestingly though, no name has come up as the candidate to complete the term for the zone, it was gathered authoritatively that the zone would, this time, work harmoniously together to present a candidate that would be acceptable to the generality of the South-east caucus.

“The consensus this time is to reclaim the lost position for the zone. It will amount to double jeopardy if we cannot reclaim it now and at the same time we will not have opportunity to contest the post in the next national convention,” one of the leaders in attendance pointed out.

The fear was confirmed by a chieftain of the party and former minister for works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe who said “the party has decided to pick a North -east candidate to hold the post in an acting capacity pending the party’s national convention coming up next year March.”
According to him, the zone had lost out severally in the present dispensation, revealing that “they did not get speaker, they lost the deputy speaker slot and so, there must be re-arrangement to accommodate and compensate both the North-east and the South-west.”
He further revealed that the post of the secretary wouldgo to the South-west exuding confidence that there would not be any crisis in the arrangement.

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